Nurse Trudie is Engaged Read Free Page B

of their excursions and adventures.
    “ Garth always understood, ” she remembered with the pang that always assailed her when she thought of her twin. “ He never left me out of anything ... only that last year of his life— ” She shut her mind against thoughts of that year deliberately. It was better not to think of that, to wonder what sort of girl his unknown wife was, where and how he had met her, whether or not she had really made him happy.
    They had all been so thrilled and pleased when Garth had won the scholarship to do research at the famous Zimbuck Clinic in the United States. Her father had been pleased and proud, full of advice and suggestions, anxious that the younger man should take every advantage of the opportunity offered. Thrilled for him they had followed Garth ’ s letters as a family, noting the details and observing the possibilities. They had rejoiced together when he had written that he was to be married, saying only that his wife-to-be was in show business— “ an actress. ” Garth had said very little about her except that she was so beautiful she “ has to be seen to be believed, ” and that he was the envy of every man in the clinic “ and of a number of others who have no connection here. ” After that first letter he had written little about Veronica, except that she still worked “ when she felt bored sitting around waiting until I have time to spend with her ” and used her stage name, Veronica Fleet, whenever she had a public engagement. There had been nothing in his letters to her father and the family in general to make them uneasy, but, on her birthday—his own birthday, too—Garth had written separately to Trudie. In the letter had been one or two lines she had never forgotten:
    Veronica doesn ’ t have an easy time of it. I ’ ve told you how lovely she is. Naturally that makes for a great deal of jealousy and envy among the women, and a lot of the men think it their duty to amuse a wife whose husband is always so busy, studying and working. Thank heaven she knows how much it means to both of us for me to get the most out of this scholarship, and we ’ re able to laugh together at these things and these presumptuous people.
    And then had come that fatal vacation, when he and Veronica had gone on an outdoors holiday, up into the mountains to a cabin belonging to one of Veronica ’ s friends.
    There had been only the shock of the brief cable from Veronica stating that Garth had been killed in a “ shooting accident ” at the cabin. Doctor Hislop had cabled, written and telephoned, but could receive no definite satisfaction. Only that verdict of “ death by misadventure ” had been recorded and Garth ’ s body now lay buried in Pine Cone Springs, wherever that might be.
    Doctor Hislop had written to Garth ’ s widow, offering her a home with them until she had recovered from the shock, but they had received merely a brief letter of thanks and a regret that “ at the moment ” it was not possible to leave her unfulfilled commitments. Both Trudie and her father had written during the following year, but each time the replies had been brief and stilted, baffling them.
    “ And all the time, ” Trudie ’ s thoughts ran back to where they had started, “ we go on pretending, pretending that everything ’ s the same, almost pretending he ’ ll be returning. ” They imagined that nothing had changed because Garth didn ’ t exist any more. They had no more knowledge of that last year of his life than on the day he had been driven to the airport and had flown away from them all to the new life they had had no part in.
    “ And now I ’ m pretending again, ” Trudie sighed as the realization struck her. “ I ’ m pretending I ’ m not thrilled because Philip Malham asked for me this afternoon and remembered how hard I tried to help and please him this morning. I have to pretend I ’ m just flattered by the honor and not let anyone know how much it really